How To Keep Coyotes Away From Your Chicken Coop

Coyotes are a common canine species that exist in most places today. They tend to travel and live in large groups that are known as bands, routs or packs even though they mainly hunt in pairs. Recent times have seen coyotes adapt to life in urban areas and are able to thrive well in such places. The activities off humans have been driving them to relatively more nocturnal behavior even though you might still observe them during daylight hours. There are times when they will even mate with your domestic dogs thus resulting in hybrids known as coy dogs, which can pose a great threat to your lives, especially chicken.

Coyotes are generally opportunistic and tenacious predators, which can easily wreak great havoc on your chicken if you are not careful. They not only hunt because they feel hungry but will do so if an opportunity presents itself. Chicken buffets that are laid out in the convenience and easy access area attracts not just lone coyote killers but also a pack of coyotes that can invade your poultry farm mercilessly. They usually attack and kill chickens, mainly by going for jugular areas. Once they have killed the chicken, they will then drag it away from its coop and will it elsewhere.

A coyote that is in serious hunger and really needs food won’t hesitate to even stay and hunt in your poultry farm. If you are not careful, you might be surprised to find that coyotes have already taken and consumed your entire flock of chicken. Be keen to check regularly if there are signs of coyote tracks and struggle around your coop so that you can be sure that your chicken are being harmed by coyotes. To protect your chicken from attacks by coyotes, here are some few things that you will need to do in order to enhance the safety of your chicken.

1-To start with, make sure that you train your chicken to always return to the coop in the evening. Be sure to check and head count your chicken to be sure that they are all in before you close it up for the night.

2-Next, make sure that you raise your chicken coop by building it off the ground at least by a food. This will also help in discouraging skunks, rats and snakes among other rodents from creating a residence between the coop and stealing your eggs and even chicks. Ensure that the floor of your hen house is tight and that any holes are completely patched to ensure that rats and snakes don’t get through.

3-Make sure that you build your coop in an enclosed and secure poultry run in order to discourage coyotes, dogs and bobcats among other cats that can access your flock and wreck havoc on them. You can do so by using poultry wire, electric netting, welded wire mesh and other fencing materials that can sufficiently block all the small openings. This will go a long way in ensuring that predators like coyotes stay off your chicken coop. The enclosure needs to be built appropriately tall and if possible make sure that you add a covering net to ensure that varmints do not vault the fence.

4-Use welded wire fencing to cover the chicken coop or even game bird netting or chicken wire. If possible, install random crisscrossing wires and this will help ensure that coyotes don’t make a buffet or dinner out of your chicken. Make sure that your chickens are properly shut in your coop at night and you won’t have to worry about coyote attacks. However, remember that hungry coyotes can be quite cagey and might grab their meal just after dark before you close up your coop. So, ensure that you close your chicken coop immediately when you have checked and confirmed that all chicken are in.

5-When enclosing chicken coops, consider doing so with small wire mesh fencing materials to ensure that coyotes cannot get away through. Coyotes are well known for their ability of reaching via large meshed chicken wore and they end up killing the chickens which they are able to snag. If you have built your chicken coop with mesh fully, ensure that you pick and use the right kind of wire that offers your chicken complete protection.

6-Coyotes are very notorious for even digging up beneath the surface fencing. Where this is the case, you can manage to mitigate the problem by burying galvanized hardware cloth and other welded wire around the perimeter of your coop. This will help discourage coyotes from digging up your chicken coop and perhaps reaching your chicken.

7-Make sure that you install a night light and if possible, motion sensor activated, which will flood your chicken coop with light, particularly at night after darkness sets in. There are some good predator deterrent lights that you can even buy at your local store and this will help a lot in keeping coyotes away from your coop.

8-Have chicken friendly dogs that can guard your chicken at night. However, be sure that the dogs are not tempted to squawk your chickens or run after them. They will be able to protect your chicken at night when coyote shows up at least before you arrive to save your chicken.

9-Always be prepared to be able to take the swiftest action possible once you discover predation of your chicken by coyotes. There are many measures that you can take to limit the access of coyotes to your chicken coop.

As always, prevention is always better than cure and the best way to keep away coyotes from your chicken coop is by ensuring that your chicken coop is coyote proof. Ensure your coop is less attractive to coyotes as much as possible by eliminating garbage and dog food from your coop. These can attract coyotes and bring them closer to your chicken

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